


The Lark

by Bodhicitta



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Avoid if you are feeling sad, Awesome Molly, Awesome Molly Hooper, F/M, Molly - Freeform, Molly Hooper Appreciation, Triggers, trigger - realistic illness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-08 04:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3194951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bodhicitta/pseuds/Bodhicitta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What friends are for....</p><p>(3/1/2016 - rating changed due to language)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Kind.  She was ever kind.  She spared him the details, spared him even the knowledge of what the doctors had told her until it was too late for him to do anything about it.  

So it would not be the criminal mastermind, the cartoonish "arch-enemy," but something more mundane, more tied to the earth.  He almost felt a sneer rise to his face as he thought, "How ordinary."

And then, because the damnable tears came, he realized how much he desired ordinary.  Just make it ordinary again, Molly.  These tubes protruding from your skin, these chemicals.  It's all so far from ordinary.  

He swept every bit of equipment he had to the floor.  All this energy on such stupid things.  When the real enemy was slowly encroaching, through lymph nodes and flesh.  Hiding inside her sweetness.

She gently patted his cheek as he rattled off his plan of action.  She shook her head with a slight smile at her lips, and murmured to him.

_No storming a secret Russian lab._

He rolled his eyes.  If she was going to shoot down every good suggestion, this would waste valuable time.

 _No kidnapping researchers from the Mayo Clinic._ He kept silent, and she looked at him sternly.   _I mean it.  No.  Kidnapping!_

 _Fine, no kidnapping,_ but even as he uttered the words, he began formulating his explanation of how he was not actually _kidnapping_ the doctors, just _blackmailing_ them. They could choose not to come along, to not board the private plane with the engine running on the tarmac of Rochester International Airport.  Of course, they would be choosing to suffer the dire consequences of non-compliance, including divorce proceedings, lawsuits, IRS agents hounding them, and the sudden inability to renew medical licenses, such a shame, the mortgage on that McMansion is rather crushing on a barista's salary....

_No rappelling "Mission:Impossible-style" into the secure areas of the Level 4 Biohazard Lab at NIH in Bethesda._

He protested by explaining how that plan was the most plausible of all!

She changed the subject. _Why are there cuts on your hand?_

He lied and said he had dropped a beaker.  

_And then cleaned it up with your bare hands?  How old are you, again?_

Actually, his fist and the bathroom mirror had had an unfortunate meeting.  Looking at his grim reflection, he heard the voices of everyone he knew.

_Genius._

_If only he would apply himself._

_You're supposedly a genius._

_Hey, freak, make yourself useful._

_Chemistry, physics, you've mastered it all.  But wasted on what?  Puzzles.  Games.  Escapades._

_You could come to good use, if you really applied yourself._

He had to shake himself out of self-beratement.  No time.  Must work solutions.

Finally John knocked some sense into him.   _Don't you know what the solution is, you idiot?_

_No, what is it, John.  What is it?_

_It's you being kind to her, and helping her._

He rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. John was obviously going to be of little help.  Even though he opened the door to the apartment and gestured for him to leave, his friend the good doctor rambled on.

_While you were, what was it, hacking through the jungles of Columbia looking for the head shaman of a primitive tribe, you know what you should have been doing?_

_What could I have been doing that would be more important than hunting for The Cure?  What, John?_

_Holding her hand._

He exhaled in exasperation.

_That is what she needs, Sherlock!  Honestly, are you really just an overgrown child?  Did you think people live forever?  That you'd never have to comfort anyone?_

_She's 34!_

John closed the distance between them and never appeared more menacing. _Stop making this about your own mortality, your own fears._

 _Fear!_ He snorted. **  
**

John threw his coat on and prepared to leave his friend to another night of sleeplessness, pacing...and other dangers.

_Yes, fears.  Of death. Of the afterlife.  Of judgement.  Of nothingness.  Of rotting in the ground. Like everyone else. Like something ordinary._

He squared his shoulders. _I...am NOT afraid of death._

John, his hand on the doorknob, shaking his head.  

_Oh, really?_

Several hours later, when he emerged from his mind palace, he decided through his own thoughtful consideration of all the factors, that in this case, John might be right.  If the outcome was indeed to be Miss Hooper's comfort and happiness.  Above all else, that is what mattered.  He was confident in this decision, and so set about making things right.

He snuck her cat in, in brazen defiance of hospital rules.  But since he had already broken so many rules, the nurses gave up, opting instead to bring stainless steel dishes for the feline's water and food.  

He moved a good deal of his equipment into her room.   _Just the basics._

Test tubes, beakers, microscopes.

Burners, autoclave, axe, sutures, pliers.  

Kevlar gloves.

He began sleeping on the floor near her metal bed.

Some days they whispered things to each other, things no one else would hear or understand.  She gripped his hand tightly and told him to _please love.  Someone.  John.  That ...woman._

He bowed his head in shame. _I don't care for her...I don't... I don't even know her.  She's not to be trusted._

Molly interrupted him _. That pretty girl at Angelo's, then. That pretty boy at Angelo's?  That friend of Greg's.  Anyone.  Please, just love._

_Not sure I know how._

_Oh.  You know how._ She gazed deeply into his eyes, and just for a moment, he felt that it might be true.

 _Oh.  It's true,_   she said, a sly smile curving her lips.  Now she was the one deducing him.

On another day, this one with softly falling rain, he wiped her mouth clean after she had gotten sick, and stroked her head, almost hairless now, like a baby's.

_You have quite ravished me, Mr. Holmes._

_Please don't say that._

_Oh, stop taking everything so seriously._

He wanted to cry, but remembered what John had told him - _she needs you.  Do not give into your impulses.  Hold your tongue.  Try not to blubber, for Chrissakes._

He buried his face into his hands and recalled one of John's coaching sessions.

_I can't do this.  Maybe Mrs. Hudson..._

_You have to.  Look at me.  You have to, no one else can do this._

_Do what?_

_Be there.  Just be there.  She wants you - she doesn't want me, or Mike, or Tom or Greg, or her girlfriends, as nice as they might be - she wants you.  Don't you get that, you daft idiot?  It's the least you can do._

_But I can't...._ This damn emotion, so embarrassing, made it impossible for him to continue.

 _You can't...?_   John asked.

He was silent.

_You can't what, Sherlock.  Come on, spit it out._

_I can't be the person she needs._

_Come again?_

_Loving.  Kind.  Sweet,  Good...self-less.  I am none of those things.  I am....useless!!  Is that what you want me to say?_

Both men silently stared at the tips of their shoes.

_I can't comfort her the way she needs._

_Well, you can damn well try._

He shook his head, and then suddenly found himself with his back slammed against the door, John gripping his throat with one hand, jabbing him in the chest with the other.

_I am not going to let you be the selfish little shit you've gotten away with being these past few decades, you got that?_

_I didn't know you cared that much about her._

_I'm not worried about her - she will be fine.  I'm worried about you._

_***_

He clambered into her bed and lay beside her, working on his laptop.  She cuddled near him, sighing with pleasure, her eyes drifting around the white room (why is it so white?) as he read the latest news to her, mocked the crime fighting skills of the detectives on Netflix shows, located pictures of pandas when she requested it.

_Why pandas, Molly?_

_I should have been a vet._ Her speech was slurring.  He would have the physical therapist look into that.  And then the nurses shooed him out of her bed.

He played his violin at all hours.  Her favorite was classical versions of rap songs - _that_ sent her into paroxysms.  

_Y'all gon' make me lose my mind, up in here, up in here,_

_Y'all gon' make me go all out, up in here, up in here._  

In the style of Mozart.  She laughed until her face was entirely red.   _I swear, if you recorded that, you'd make a million dollars!_

He snuck in highly inappropriate food to entice her to eat.  The mint ice cream obscenely loaded with gummy bears, chocolate, and crushed biscuits did the trick.  He fed it to her while lying beside her in her bed, until the nurses shooed him out.

He loomed over every attending physician, disputing almost everything they said.  Except concerning pain killers.  When that was discussed, he kept very, very quiet, very still.  He knew something about painkillers, opiates, sedatives, and when he overheard the dosages she required, his heart clenched, he had difficulty breathing.  Was this empathy?  Then it was ....horrible.

_I'm quite sure you will find much more interesting friends than myself._

_I want you to stop that now, Molly.  Stop pretending you are not...not...the most radiant creature my eyes have ever beheld._

Between her choked sobs and tears, she managed to utter, _That's.....hilarious!"_

She was laughing!  And he finally, he knew what he could do, what his special talent was.  He purposely said ridiculous things; told her about cases with a bit too much detail.  Her eyes widened at the danger and absurdity of some of the missions with which he and John had been tasked.  

He was distracting, in the best way.  He became Scheherazade, weaving increasingly byzantine tales, tales that never ended, hoping each installment, each unfinished story would pull her through another day.

 _But tomorrow, I want to hear the end, dammit!_   She pouted, then slapped him on his arm.

_You're going to have to hit me harder than that._

And she did, chuckling.  But he was oh, so serious.  He wanted her to keep hitting him, over and over, until there were bruises, visible bruises to make sense of the ones on the inside that she had wrought with her loyalty and wisdom, her doe-like eyes, and her ridiculous clothes.  With her silly ponytail, and silly sweet face, and her heart, like that of a lion.

Then the day came when something shifted, and he felt the most pressing urge to lie down with her, beside her in the bed, even though the busy-body nurses would yell.  But the nurses did not protest, and then he knew.

He draped himself over her tiny body, covered her like a blanket, burrowed into her neck, cradled her head.  Maybe if he clung to her hard enough, she would fly him up to heaven on her fairy-like wings, all silver and wispy and carefree.

And that was that.  Her beautiful melody was gone.  All gone.

For the rest of days, he would crave nothing, save her song.  She had bruised him.  That's all he was now.  The bruise that she had made.


	2. The List, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aftermath.

Everything is aftermath.

He can't stop thinking about how one time, lying in bed next to her, he got a searing erection. What kind of perv gets a hard on for a woman who has lost all of her hair, frail, unable to fend for herself, unable even to wipe her own bum.

But even still. He wanted to fuck her into the bed, grind her down into fine powder, own her, penetrate and pummel her, grab at her skin like a free climber hanging off a cliff.  If he could penetrate her very flesh with his fingers - like something out of a David Cronenburg movie - he would.

Instead, he lay very still, the desire making him alternate between a flush of heat and damp cold over and over, like he had the flu.

She turned in her sleep, and then opened her eyes, and smiled at him.  Gulping, he swallowed it all down.  The desire, the pain, the grief, her sweetness, her loyalty.  How large the gap between his and her moral compass.  How he would do anything to get what he wanted, while she would not.

Mycroft tries to help.  He stays on top of the "list," that's for damned sure.  He silently extends his hand, and Sherlock dutifully hands it over.  Mycroft turns it over in his hand, sighs, inspects it, seems assured that it is accurate and complete.  

"Why so much of...." he asks, indicating one particularly harrowing combo of hallucinogens.  

"Stops me thinking."

Mycroft thought better of challenging his brother, because that was never part of the deal.  The deal was The List.  No recriminations.  Just The List.

Before he leaves, Elder Brother asks a sincere question.  Not an accusation, but a genuine query, from a sincere desire to understand.

"How can you be in love with someone who is in the ground?"

Sherlock is not offended, because he barely hears the question, and even if he had heard the question - clearly - and not through a haze of violin concertos and bullet ricochets and medical equipment beeping all blended together in a sound collage - he would still have understood that his Brother, like himself, cut of the same cloth as it were, only wanted To Know. Things.  

Everything.  The human brain, heart, soul; motivations; cause and effect.  Because only with knowledge can the human species move forward toward a less chaotic future.

"Not in love with her," he spat out. Barely able to move. Curled up. Wishing he could be catatonic again. Wishing for The Brother to leave. "It's different.  I don't know...what it is...it's worse than that...it's...inutterable."

Before Mycroft left, he asked, "You quite alright?"

Already knowing the answer was no.  A danger night, to be sure.  Hats off to Miss Hooper.  The only one who could fell him.  Bring him to his knees.  

A worthy adversary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My updates will be tiny. Ficlets, if you will. That's just the (writerly) mood - or mode - I'm in.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know in comments if this is entirely too sad. I'm not quite sure what to make of it - and I wrote it!


End file.
